My mom owned a set of pearls that got lost years ago somewhere between the funeral and my dad selling the house. She wore hers like Grace Kelly (single strand, hanging near the clavicle), and occasionally like Audrey Hepburn (double/triple strand, sans the cigarette but definitely with the gloves), but she could have worn them hanging on one ear and I still would have thought she was the most beautiful human I'd ever seen.

I'm going to wear mine like a new age hippie. There's a folklore around stones and the energy around them, and mother of pearl goes like this: "it awakens the primordial memory of your origin in the infinite ocean of divine love and gives you the feeling of being cradled in a mother's arms."

Sold. I will wear them everywhere. I will wear them all the time. I can even wear them when my new electric drill arrives (my other expensive gift to myself) and then I can start fixing things around the house like those extra fancy carpenters that you see in well, hmm, in porn. Er.

One of my friends asked me if I really ever took a look at kids - saw how small they really were, especially at age 5 or 8, which was probably around the same age that I was when I started making my own interpretations about the world and life. She's right. I needed the reminder.

There's a part of us that still sees things through the lens we created when we were little and usually our views about "life" are actually views we had about our parents. Life/The universe/God is there for other people but not me, life isn't trustworthy or dependable, life comes home really late smelling like booze and terrifying the crap out of us. We all have our stories.

So I went to the Long Beach Aquarium, saw some big fish and some teensy humans, and considered my childhood while I ate a tuna sandwich - they shouldn't sell those at the aquarium by the way. I was definitely much too small to grasp the complexities of the chaos that was happening in my home. I'm much bigger now in a lot of ways - I have infinitely more resources, I'm wiser and intuitive, I'm capable of learning what I need to keep myself thriving and safe. And I have pearls. And they're pretty.

I think I left my old interpretations about life somewhere near the jellyfish. If you see them, Do Not Touch.

While I was there, I took a photo of this little girl.

What's that clutching, parental hand holding her back from? She seems safe enough without it.